A Prayer Book Advent

This year Advent is very short. It begins on the evening of Saturday, 1 December, and lasts barely three weeks, so we must make the most of it. Here in the monastery, Advent is eagerly anticipated. We relish the simplicities of the season.

These words from Digitalnun are a quite beautiful reminder of the gift of Advent simplicity. There is a temptation to crowd the liturgy in Advent - to make it 'fussy', filling it with additional devotions or practices. Amidst the busy social and commercial demands of these weeks, however, it is the simplicities of the liturgy which can be most compelling

This is what we see in a Prayer Book Advent. Apart from the daily praying of the Advent collect, no additional devotions or practices crowd the liturgy. By contrast, consider the extensive provision and multiple options provided by the CofE's Times and Seasons for Advent. The concern here is not 'only' with aesthetics. The concern is also theological. A multiplication of texts and devotions can obscure the defining message of Advent. In the words of Fleming Rutledge:

Advent requires us to think about judgment, that theme we scorn and disdain and omit and gloss over throughout the year.

In a short season - three weeks this year - that theme of judgement is too easily pushed aside or overshadowed by the thematic approach of the Advent Wreath, or by the change in proper prefaces suggested by Times and Seasons on the 17th (with a new focus on forthcoming Nativity). Indeed, if the 17th marks the beginning of a new emphasis in the Advent season, the traditional contemplation of the Lord's judgement is then restricted to a mere two weeks.

On the other hand, precisely because we do need to be brought to focus on the theme of judgement, some distinctive liturgical content is required. So how can a Prayer Book Advent provide such content?

At the heart of a Prayer Book Advent is the majestic seasonal Collect, to be prayed each day "until Christmas Eve". The Collect in its reference to "the works of darkness" points to the cosmological symbolism of the dark December days; orients us towards the day of Doom, "when he shall come again in his glorious Majesty to judge both the quick and dead"; and renews in us the Christian hope, "that we may rise to the life immortal". This pronounced eschatological proclamation defines a Prayer Book Advent, ensuring that Advent is not neutered throught the centrality of other, more comfortable, less unsettling themes.

And in all this, a creative tension is maintained with reference to the forthcoming celebration of the Nativity: "now in the time of this mortal life, in which thy Son Jesus Christ came to visit us in great humility". That "now" will be echoed in the proper preface of Christmas: "born as at this time for us".

The absence of a proper preface for Advent (none is provided in 1662, Ireland 1926, PECUSA 1928, or Canada 1962) contributes to the liturgical simplicity of a Prayer Book Advent. Simplicity, however, does not mean empty. Without a seasonal proper preface, the words of the preface and Sanctus confront us afresh in Advent. Here is a foretaste of the Advent collect's "last day". Here the Lord's Advent is anticipated: "heaven and earth are full of thy glory". The preface and Sanctus is not, then, overshadowed by a seasonal proper preface. Rather, there are sung or said in the light of Advent.

The traditional Epistles provided for the Sundays of Advent in the Prayer Book tradition also encapsulate the season in a way that can be lost with the variety of readings in the three year lectionary - and, indeed, with three rather than two readings. The Prayer Book epistles, week by week, set before us the call of Advent - "the night is far spent", "to reign over the Gentiles", "until the Lord come", "the Lord is at hand". Having this consistent proclamation, given in short epistle readings - each containing pithy statements concerning the Advent of the Lord - ensures that the season's eschatological emphasis is not obscured.

Thomas Merton said of December in the monastery at Gethsemani:

inhabited and pervaded by the cold and mystery and woods and Latin liturgy.

To describe a Prayer Book Advent, we could change that final phrase to 'Cranmerian liturgy'. The simplicities of a Prayer Book Advent - amidst the cold and dark of "the year's midnight" - can bring us in a deeper way to be centred upon mystery of the Advent of the Lord, upon the need for a renewed eschatological hope in dark times.

(The first picture is George Shaw, 'The End of Time', 2008-9. The second is St Mary's, Lead, north Yorkshire, from the Churches' Conservation Trust.)

Why I support the ordination of women: a High Church reflection

A number of commenters on this blog have asked about my occasional expressions of support for the ordination of women to all three orders. With some hesitation, I have decided to post a summary of my own views on this matter. The hesitation is because I have sought on this blog to focus on issues and themes which can unify those who identify with or have respect (grudging or otherwise!) for what we might term 'classical' Anglicanism (the Anglicanism of the Formularies and - yes - of the Old High Church tradition). Some oppose the ordination of women (and I have friends and colleagues who do so, Anglo-Catholic, High Church, and Reformed Evangelical). Some of us support it (again, friends and colleagues covering a wide range of theological traditions). Below, I have organised my thinking around 5 points (needless to say, no reference to Dort is implied). 1. The Declaration for Subscription required of clergy in the Church of Ireland states: (6) I promise to submit ...

How the Old High tradition continued

Charles Gore's 1914 letter to the clergy of his diocese, ' The Basis of Anglican Fellowship ', can be regarded as a classical expression of the Prayer Book Catholic tradition. A key part of the letter - entitled 'Romanizing in the Church of England' - addressed the "Catholic movement", questioning beliefs and practices within it which tended to "a position which makes it very difficult for its extremer representatives to give an intelligible reason why they are not Roman Catholics". Gore provides the outlines of an alternative account and experience of catholicity within Anglicanism, defined by three characteristics. What is particularly interesting about these characteristics is their continuity with the older High Church tradition. Indeed, the central characteristic as set out by Gore was integral to High Church claims over centuries: To accept the Anglican position as valid, in any sense, is to appeal behind the Pope and the authority of t...

'Whether the Lutheran Churches have right Ordinations and perfect succession of Bishops': Jeremy Taylor, 'Episcopacy Asserted', and Lutheran orders

Amidst the bitter controversies over episcopacy in the Three Kingdoms during the early 1640s, controversies which had become war in Scotland in 1637 and then in England in 1642, Jeremy Taylor wrote his Laudian defence of episcopal order, The Sacred Order and Offices of Episcopacy Asserted and Maintained . He proposed in this work that the non-episcopal Reformed churches could have had episcopally-ordered clergy: Those good people might have had order from the bishops of England or the Lutheran churches, if at least they thought our churches catholic and Christian. Leaving aside the reality that, for example, French Protestants would have been placed in an invidious political position if they had done as Taylor proposed, it is the reference to "the Lutheran churches" which is significant. To begin with, a large portion of the Lutheran churches - those in the German lands - were governed by a system of superintendency. It is almost inconceivable that Taylor was not aware of th...

Anonymous1 December 2018 at 13:57
Latin still has its advocates in the Anglican milieu especially on the west coast in the USA. A Californian priest has translated the 1979 BCP into Latin, and elements thereof are used by The Advent in SF and S. Thomas, Hollywood. Stanford University occasionally offers Latin Evensong with English readings, from the 1662 book. S.Thomas in NYC often uses Latin hymns.

Of course one can always discern the influence of the Vulgate upon the true BCP and the KJV. How could Cranmer have avoided such an influence since he was exposed to it from his childhood?

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